Chaos & the King of Hay: James Hanning on Britain’s Unruliest Bookseller

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Recorded15 Nov 2025

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Former deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday, James Hanning, takes us behind the scenes of The Bookseller of Hay, his immersive portrait of Richard Booth, the man whose eccentric brilliance (and spectacular unruliness!) turned Hay-on-Wye into a world-famous literary destination.We talk about Booth’s larger-than-life personality, his love–hate relationship with the Hay Festival, his spectacular mischief, and the contradictions that made him both impossible and irresistible. James also shares how his upbringing and his instinct for “getting to the bottom of things” shaped this book and career.

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